The most common wine cellars incorporate insulated wood panel walls and doors with built in refrigeration cooling units. This type of design accounts for most all larger wine storage systems and these models can be custom made according to a buyer's discretion and perhaps space limitations. The majority of smaller self-contained wine storage systems are made from metal cabinets similar to refrigerator designs and incorporate glass display doors.
Refrigerated Wine Cellars are made in a variety of standard and custom designs and are available from many sources in the marketplace. There are similarities between most all models being sold and the differences range between design variations, construction features as well as the prices but the basic design and operation principles are the same whereas they use a self contained and centralized refrigeration unit(s) to cool the stored wine at desired temperature. Temperature controlled wine storage optimizes the flavor and maintains the long-term quality of all wines. All wine cellars are equipped with racks whereby the bottles lay flat to maintain moisture to the corks which prevents drying and air entering the bottle which will compromise the quality of the wines. The size, design and expense of wine cellars are factors which may attract or possibly detract a buyers interests. The present size of a wine collection is also an important consideration due to many owners continuously add to their collections and this requires additional storage facilities.
A most recent introduction into the marketplace is the Semi-Conductor or Electro Thermal cooling system(s). This new technology allows cooling function with no vibration from moving parts and no refrigerants as compared with conventional cooling systems.
The semi-conductor systems do however have a lesser cooling capacity than conventional systems and this factor presently allows use only for specific applications where the cooling recovery demand may be lower than a conventional refrigerator for instance. This system does however have a significant advantage in such applications as a wine cellar whereby the doors are not opened as frequently as a refrigerator and the owners simply wish to maintain the environment and temperature of their wines over a long period of time. Wine Cellars which utilize semi-conductor cooling systems are able to maintain the desired temperatures of wine (55 F–63 F) in a highly efficient and economical manner.
A growing variety of semi-conductor wine cellars are already making entry into the marketplace however all present day models are smaller “free standing” units, which are limited in size.
Some examples of prior art designs for wine storage and dispensing systems are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,607,105 (Phelps) issued Aug. 19, 2003, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,804,482 (Smith) issued Apr. 16, 1974 and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,758,513 (Smith) issued Jun. 2, 1998.